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I read most of the article, in which the author implies that defunding the police increases crime, and blames the people in charge of Oakland with this crime.

• Invictus0 5y ago
  It's more than an implication, it's a direct statement: > As the surge in violence has become less theoretical to white, middle class residents, Oakland’s mayor has been afforded the political space to push to restore the funds that were cut from the police budget.
• reanimus 5y ago
  You're right on the mark. A lot of articles scare-mongering about defunding the police point to numbers in places that haven't seen any defunding (quite the contrary, many of them have had boosts to their budgets, as usual).
• wobblyasp 5y ago
  You missed the opportunity to push your narrative
• x1ph0z 5y ago
  > What did I miss Someone pushing their propaganda
• nerdponx 5y ago
  > What did I miss? Nothing. There is a narrative being pushed that tries to correlate Black Lives Matter, Defund The Police, etc. activity with increasing crime. That narrative might have some validity in some localized cases, but is clearly not universally causal.
• eckmLJE 5y ago
  Actual instances of police funding being reduced are so rare that the author reaches for incidents of low police-citizen interaction following controversial police-on-citizen violence as evidence of what a straw-man version of "defund the police" advocates for. "Defund the police" has to be the most poorly conceived political slogan of all time. It sounds more like a pejorative its opponents came up with.
  • throwawaymanbot 5y ago
    I feel you are spot on With this.
  • mitigating 5y ago
    wouldn't that mean the cause of the increased crime is either criminals who are angry at the police so they commit more crimes or the police not working as hard (or a combination)
    • ben_w 5y ago
      Could be, but those aren’t exhaustive possibilities. There might also just be more crime e.g. because of the pandemic rather than anger at the police, or there might be the same actual level of crime but more is getting reported.
    • chongli 5y ago
      Wait what? Why would criminals be angry at the police for not interacting with them as much? I think a more likely explanation for increased crime is increased opportunity due to reduced police presence.
  • tshaddox 5y ago
    I can understand some criticisms of the slogan, but why are you criticizing the slogan in this case when the police were literally not defunded?
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• vb6sp6 5y ago
  > What did I miss? A cultural shift. We now have people getting mad about things that aren't happening and sharing this info as fact to anyone who will listen
• codenesium 5y ago
  Not much. It's an opinion piece. Probably doesn't belong on HN.
  • mitigating 5y ago
    Would it be similar to if I wrote an article saying I'm 10ft tall?
  • lalaland1125 5y ago
    There is a difference between opinion pieces that are at least backed by reality and ones that are mostly hot air
    • omegaworks 5y ago
      This one is mostly hot air.
    • muzani 5y ago
      I expected more stats because of the word "meets" in the title. But there are none, only a collection of anecdotes. The blog name is "Common Sense" too, so it's like the author didn't think statistics on police effectiveness matters, it's just common sense that police stop crime.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
• deeg 5y ago
  Crime is going up in cities all over the country, including those in red states that never had a sniff of "Defund the Police". I'm unconvinced that it's a direct contributor.
  • omegaworks 5y ago
    >Crime is going up in cities all over the country False. Nearly every crime stat is trending downward.[1] 1. https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime-rate-statistics https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime...
    • pixelgeek 5y ago
      And your link to supporting data is where?
      • omegaworks 5y ago
        https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime-rate-statistics https://www.macrotrends.net/cities/us/ca/san-francisco/crime...
  • treeman79 5y ago
    Going after a bad guy is now very risky. If someone puts a gun to your head and says they will kill you and you protect yourself. Well you will be made an example.
    • vb6sp6 5y ago
      No it isn't. Mistaking a taser for a gun and killing someone is very risky. Kneeling on someone's neck while they are handcuffed is risky. Normal policing is not.
  • m-p-3 5y ago
    My guess is that the root cause is a mix of increasing inequalities (perceived or real), low wages and polarizations in the media.
• ybessyehs654 5y ago
  The article you posted is dated July 1st. The author's citation for the "defunding" bill was approved on June 24 [1], in which funds were redirected from the police to "violence prevention programs." Obviously both articles are talking about different things. [1] https://abc7news.com/oakland-police-funding-city-council-cuts-opd/10828829/ https://abc7news.com/oakland-police-funding-city-council-cut...
  • scrollbar 5y ago
    Thank you for sharing this. If I read this article correctly then the author's point is that simply the passage of a bill to be enacted in the future is the cause of increased crime in the present, which seems like a shaky argument to me. Also I'm noticing that the ABC7News article says >More than $17 million will be diverted from the police to violence prevention and other services not involving police. Another $3.6 million will be put into the new MACRO program which will basically be a civilian crisis response program within the Oakland Fire Department addressing those in mental health crises. This means that even assuming this is a net decrease of $20.6 million to budget, this is still giving back only ~half the net increase from this year's budget. So we should still be up $16 million or so vs. 2020
    • ybessyehs654 5y ago
      The budgets shouldn't be compared in nominal terms because of inflation (6.2%) and the increased costs of pensions (more police officers retiring). Your article also says that 18% of the budget is now allocated to the police as compared to prior year's 20% (not accounting for the $17 million redirection)
      • scrollbar 5y ago
        Sorry, I don't see why inflation and pensions should be removed from police budgets and not from other budgets. I'm very uninformed about city budgeting but this feels a little "lies, damn lies, and statistics"-y to me. The change in proportional allocation is more convincing, but I'm too ignorant to understand the implications and nuances.
• Waterluvian 5y ago
  I wouldn’t put it past upset American cops to simply not do their job properly as a form of protest.
  • user982 5y ago
    The police in essence said: “If you challenge us, if you insult us, we will no longer protect you.” - https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/nypd-police-slowdown-defund-demilitarize https://jacobinmag.com/2020/06/nypd-police-slowdown-defund-d... Police are intentionally allowing crimes specifically to boost the narrative of posts like this.
    • rascul 5y ago
      Police don't seem to be required to protect people anyway. https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-you-federal-court-affirms-yet-again https://mises.org/power-market/police-have-no-duty-protect-y...
  • throwaway0a5e 5y ago
    When city police forces go on strike against the city for not giving them raises it often takes the form of solving "crime with a victim" while ignoring all the traffic stuff, intoxication stuff and fishing stuff that rakes in $$ through fines in order to stick it to the city. Other than a few Karens who write angry FB posts about people riding dirtbikes on the street as though they're real motorcycles it's generally a boon for the citizenry. I think the most recent city to have this kind of strike was Baltimore in the 2015-18ish time range.
  • MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    How would you differentiate the protest from the way they're currently doing their jobs?
• mostertoaster 5y ago
  I think it is that the movement itself has caused crime to increase. My friend is a police officer and is moving out of my progressive state to a more conservative one. He told me this is happening in nearly every department. His reasoning was that they use to feel like they were on the side of the community, but in many places it is now the community is opposed to the police. Also they don’t risk certain things because they might have to use force and they’re worried they’ll be charged with a crime f or doing so, (especially if people riot enough and the DA needs to satisfy them). All that adds up to more crime, even though budgets will probably rise to pay more to try to convince officers to stay. How do we both protest police brutality when it rears its head, while still treating officers like they’re on the side of the good guys (like most, but not all, are). I have no answer.
  • heavyset_go 5y ago
    > All that adds up to more crime And yet there is a dearth of evidence for this claim.
    • mostertoaster 5y ago
      As is the claim that police use force unjustly more often against PoC
      • alphabettsy 5y ago
        The evidence relies on self-reporting. If use of force data resulting in death has proven to be inaccurate than what reliability can be expected when we’re talking about an unjustified assault?
  • scrollbar 5y ago
    That may or may not be true and is worth exploring more. Although as another poster points out, this is a vastly different argument than saying as the article does: >As the surge in violence has become less theoretical to white, middle class residents, Oakland’s mayor has been afforded the political space to push to restore the funds that were cut from the police budget. Which seems to be to be a misunderstanding of consensus reality
• vondur 5y ago
  The main item in certain states is not prosecuting crime. We recently had a smash and grab robbery that made news here in SoCal. The suspects were quickly apprehended, but it turns out they were released on bail almost immediately afterwards. Due to the non-prosecution of criminal acts, these people will probably never do any jail time. People are definitely cognizant of this at this point, and it's eroding peoples trust of the government.
  • whimsicalism 5y ago
    Seems reasonable to have bail for a smash-and-grab rather than jail. I'd vote against someone proposing otherwise, as do most people I know, so I'm guessing this is just a reflection of the general democratic will of the citizenry here.
    • alphabettsy 5y ago
      Interesting because I’m all for bail reform and alternative punishment for petty crime, but a smash-and-grab seems awfully brazen. Bail seems appropriate for someone stealing an unattended bike, less so for other crimes.
      • whimsicalism 5y ago
        what sort of petty crimes, that previously had mandatory jail time, are you even thinking of? to me, cutting a bike lock and smash & grabbing are like definitional petty crimes.
        • alphabettsy 5y ago
          Stealing a cellphone can still be a felony based on the amounts we’re talking about. For me there’s a distinction between entering a locked building and stealing a bike locked on the sidewalk. It’s arbitrary I know.
          • whimsicalism 5y ago
• torstenvl 5y ago
  Well, first off, a 1.3% increase in dollar terms in the face of 6.2% inflation is, in point of actual fact, a budget cut. In real terms, the Oakland policing budget went from $706mm to $674mm. That is unambiguously a cut in their ability to fund their operations.
• disabled 5y ago
  > I read most of the article, in which the author implies that defunding the police increases crime, and blames the people in charge of Oakland with this crime. Yet I recalled hearing that police budgets in Oakland were steady to up this year, despite the protests. What did I miss? You missed the part about people linking together statistics, that are not necessarily related in any meaningful way, into a BS narrative or story. This is commonplace on various Substacks that people write. Also, I especially tend to find this from people with formal economics backgrounds and training.
• spfzero 5y ago
  Many urban police departments are seeing a lot of officers quitting, and having problems filling vacancies. They are down hundreds of positions, and this has the effect of reducing police presence for deterrence, and also lower arrest rates so that more criminals are out on the streets. There were only 2 city council-members who voted against defunding. Whether or not actual budgets get reduced, urban cops got the message that they are not appreciated, or worse. The good ones can easily get jobs somewhere less stressful and with higher job satisfaction.
• WheelsAtLarge 5y ago
  His main point is that defunding the police without an alternative that has been proven to reduce crime does the opposite. It increases crime over time. What he outlines is true. I hear a lot about cutting the police but little to nothing about what will replace it as a proven way to reduce crime. Also, all budgets need to increase just to keep up with inflation. So just because a budget is increased or it stays the same does not imply that it has not been cut. An increase of $39 mil. can only be properly evaluated if we know the size of the original budget and inflation.
  • scrollbar 5y ago
    Maybe that's their point, but it's not convincing if it's using made-up information, which is my point. The inflation argument is not very convincing to me either. Both of those measures (inflation, budget) are objective facts that are absent from the article. Also "police budgets not quite keeping up with inflation is causing chaos in my neighborhood" is not very convincing.
  • MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    His main point is a straw man, since none of the "defunding" initiatives are as banal as simply taking money away from the entire picture. Defunding has always been about reallocating the money to help fix the root causes of criminal behavior in ways that don't involve a bunch of middle aged men in uniforms pretending to be the heroes of their own action movies.
• sitkack 5y ago
  The part where police forces across the country in the wake of Defund, did a work-stoppage strike (illegal) and basically said, "swim in your sht". The data will bear this out.